Heroes for ghosts
by Sorah
Summary: "I thought you were back, like years ago." "Well, you can't fake a cancer, can you?"
1. I thought you were back

**English is not my native language, and I speak better than I write, so please be kind : )**

**I'm not gonna tell what this fic is about, I'll let you find out.**

"No!" John shouted, running through the living room. His hands were shaking and his leg was in such a pain that he fell on the stairs while trying to reach for his room. Of course, he could've run to Sherlock's, but like always, the feeling that the room was not available suppressed the memory that Sherlock was no long living there.

"John", Sherlock said, with a sad tone, almost breaking his own heart to talk. "Please." He begged.

John kept his eyes closed, crying, on the stairs. He didn't move, he didn't dare to look at his friend.

"I need you." Sherlock walked through the living room, stopping by his side. "I'm here and I need you".

For a moment, John remained in silence. They did not speak, not move. But suddenly, the doctor convinced himself that the leg wasn't hurting that much and ran upstairs. "You're not real. I'm not getting crazy! I'm not!"

"John, I'm here." Sherlock followed him. Slowly, taking his time. When he got into John's room, he saw the doctor behind the bed, crawled and shaking, holding his aching leg. "I'm not going crazy, I'm not!" he yelled.

"John, look at me." Sherlock asked. There was nowhere John could run anymore. So he took a deep breath and looked at his friend.

Sherlock was wearing his long overcoat and the scarf. His face was paler than ever, and his eyes were somehow brighter. His whole body was brighter. Like if there was some kind of light running through his veins. There were tears in his face, but they seems like liquid diamonds.

"You were dead" gasped John. "You died, I saw. I saw you dying! I was there the whole _freaking_ time. I watched you becoming just skin and bones! We said goodbye to each other! And now you are alive again?"

"I _am_ dead, John." Sherlock cried a little more. "I _am dead._"

"I'm going crazy, am I?" John tried to get up, but the leg was in excruciating pain. "I'm seeing you."

Sherlock stepped ahead to help him, but his hand went through John's arm like if he was made of air.

"You are not going crazy" Sherlock assured, breathing heavily. "Though I can't prove. You'll just have to believe me."

"You are a ghost?" John's voice faded in this throat. "For a moment I thought…" John's eyes were filled with tears, and the words seems to be stuck in his mouth, playing around, not intending to leave. "I thought you were back, like years ago."

"I had faked my death. I jumped from that building knowing I'd live. But this time… well, you can't fake a cancer, can you?"

John felt his whole body turn into a liquid state of pure tears. He got up and embraced Sherlock, but everything he felt was some cold sensation of absence. He couldn't feel his friend. He couldn't hug him.

Sherlock also couldn't feel John's body. Instead, he felt the warm sensation of the loved missed one.

"Sorry, John. I'm sorry." He said. "It's over."

"Why are you here then? Why are you haunting me?"

Sherlock stepped back. He was in front of a mirror, but there was no reflection.

"It seems that I've left some unfinished things. I need your help to finish it. I'm tied to some people. I must break these strings. Would you do this for me, John?"

John stared his friend for some seconds. He was there. Standing in front of him with a sad desolated expression.

"Then you'll go away?"

"I'll be free to go, yes."

"I don't want you to go."

Sherlock let another diamond-like tear roll. "I don't wanna haunt you for the rest of your life. You must get over me. You are alive, John. I'm not."

"I'm not living either!" John shouted. "I can't, Sherlock! You can't ask me to do something that will make me never see you again!"

"I wanna go, John." Sherlock confessed, looking at anything but John's eyes. "You see, this state… It hurts. It's like I'm empty. Incomplete. I wanna go"

"You wanna rest in peace? You don't like peace. Peace is boring to you."

Sherlock smiled briefly, in a way that John could barely notice. "I'm tired. The cancer exhausted me. I just wanna…"

"You are lying! You wanna go so you can stop seeing me!" John sat on his bed, not able to take the pain on his leg anymore. "It all makes sense now. You've being watching me. The voice in my head, telling not to…"

"Pull the trigger." Sherlock ended the sentence when John just couldn't. "Yeah, that was me."

"Sherlock… please, don't go. And don't ask me to help you doing it."

Sherlock sat by his side. The bed showed no resistance to his weight, and the sheets didn't even got smashed. "Please, John. I need to go. I'm begging to you. Help me."

**This chapter was a prologue. I'm not sure if there will be only one more or I'll post the rest in different chapters. Or if I won't post at all, if there's no reviews xD (considering that nobody wants the rest).**


	2. My favorite hero

**Thank you for the reviews. There will be a couple more chapters of this one, if you people want it.**

* * *

_So,_  
_So you think you can tell_  
_Heaven from Hell,_  
_Blue skies from pain_  
_Can you tell a green field_  
_From a cold steel rail?_  
_A smile from a veil?_  
_Do you think you can tell?_

_-Wish you were here - Pink Floyd_

**Chapter 2 - My favorite hero**

"In the closet" said Sherlock. "A little green box."

John was now in Sherlock's room. Everything was exactly how the detective had left. Even a sock on the floor. John didn't touch anything. So now, opening his closet was something like a torture to him.

He found the box under a lot of clothes John never saw Sherlock wearing. It was clearly hidden, and John didn't understand from whom, once he'd never look for something in Sherlock's room.

"Open it." Asked Sherlock.

John sat on his bed and opened the box. It was some old shoes box, filled with letters and small toys. At the bottom, there was an old magnifying glass.

"Get the paper with a childish handwriting" he ordered, with a soft voice that seemed to fade away.

John looked at his friend when he noticed the tone of his voice. Sherlock was clearly breaking himself into pieces. So the doctor understood that Sherlock was hiding that box from nobody but himself.

The paper with the childish handwriting was at least 20 years old. It was tearing apart. It was some kind of redaction for school children. There was a logotype of an expensive and traditional school from Oxford and Sherlock's name on the top.

"What's this, Sherlock?"

"Something I wrote when I was 8. I need you to give it to Mycroft. In fact, give him the whole box."

John looked at all those old stuff, than carefully put the redaction on the bed, so it wouldn't tea apart any more.

"You can read if you want to." Said Sherlock.

* * *

_Redaction to my favorite hero – By Sherlock Holmes_

_My favorite hero can't fly. He can't run super-fast. He doesn't have laser eyes or x-ray vision. In fact, he can't even avoid eating too much, so he is very slow. He can't talk to girls like Ironman or beat bad guys like Batman. And he doesn't turn into a big green thing like Hulk – or I hope not!_

_But my favorite hero is the best of all. Because he takes care of me and my mom, he is always watching for us. He teaches me everything and he helps me at school, because he is very smart. When I'm alone, he is always there to me. He lets me win at chess, he plays fun games with me._

_When dad died and mom got sad, my favorite hero was here to be the man in the house, to lead things and take care of me. _

_I'm proud to say that I'm the brother of this hero, and I'm happy that I can always count on him._

* * *

"What happened, Sherlock? Why didn't you ever give him this?"

Sherlock had his head down, looking at his own shoes. John saw another tear fall and disappear in the air.

"Mycroft went to the University of Oxford at age of 16. Me and my mother left London to live with him in Oxford, because she thought I couldn't be away from him."

"But…"

"But when he turned 18, somebody at Harvard offered him a vacancy there, for free. He didn't tell me. When I got home from school and I was going to show him this redaction, he was packing to leave. He left me. He left me and mom."

"So that's how it started."

"He kept sending me letters that I pretended to burn" Sherlock nearly laughed in the middle of his crying. "I used to get fake envelopes and burn them in front of my mother, so she would think I was burning his letters. Then, when he asked about them, she would say I didn't even read."

"But you did."

"Every single one of them."

John got one of the letters, without choosing any one particularly.

* * *

_"Sherlock, you'll probably won't read this either, but I'm truly sorry. Mom said you got beaten up at school. I wished so hard I could be there. You know I just can't fight, but I'd protect you. I know you don't believe me. But someday I'll do something right for you. And mom._

_I'm sorry, dear brother,_

_Mycroft Holmes."_

* * *

"You got beaten up at school." Said John.

"A couple of times." He laughed. "Com'on, John, you know me."

John couldn't help himself but laugh.

"You were a hell of a kid, weren't you?"

"I was. Perhaps I deserved some of the punches."

They both laughed together. John could nearly forget that the man beside him was dead for over a year already. It was like having his best friend again. The way he remembered him. Not the human-like being that passed away in a hospital bed, staining the sheets with blood.

"Get the other one" Sherlock pointed at one specific letter after they stopped laughing.

* * *

_"Mom said you got home crying last week. She asked me to go talk to you. I wish I could, but I can't. And you wouldn't listen to me, would you?_

_She said you had a friend. That everything was ok. You were getting better. But then you got home crying. Oh, my brother, how I wish I could be there. She doesn't know. But I do. You loved this boy, didn't you? You don't have friends. You wouldn't make a friend. You would just stay around people you can't avoid._

_Sherlock, if you ever read this, if you still believe me somehow, there's only one thing about life that I never taught you, and I guess it was the most important one: Caring changes nothing. Doing things changes everything. People will die. People will suffer. Hearts will be broken. And caring won't stop it._

_Your brother,_

_Mycroft Holmes._

* * *

"You've always said you hated him. That he was your archi-enemy."

"And yet he was the person who exerted more influence on me." Sherlock nodded. "Mycroft has always been my life model. I always relied on the words of the letters he sent me while I was pretending to hate him. Well… I actually hated him. A lot. I never truly forgave him, because when I said that mom was sad, I meant depression. We needed him. And he didn't care. He just left. But even with all the hatred, Mycroft was my hero, my inspiration. He soon became my enemy, because I swore I'd be better than him. That I'd never need his help for anything. But everything I ever did had, somehow, his hand. His help. His support. He was always there for me." Sherlock gasped. His words were fading again. "He was always there."

John wanted to hug him. He wanted so hard. But he already knew that the only thing he'd feel would be some weird cold feeling of non-existence, reminding him that Sherlock was dead.

"What about this boy, Sherlock?"

"Mycroft had already finished his college, and he was working for the United Kingdom at the USA, so he didn't come back. I was more alone than never, because I was already at the last year of high school, intending to get into Cambridge before my 16, just so I could say I got into college sooner than my brother, and I made a point of going to the university known to be rival of Oxford's". Sherlock laughed. "Everybody hated me back then. And I hated everybody. But there was this boy at the german class. He was some prodigy kid too. He had trouble making friends, so we got closer. Someday he said he loved me and my head exploded. I didn't know what feelings were."

"You liked him too."

"Yes. Eventually I found out that I liked this boy a lot. My grades fell and I didn't made into Cambridge that year."

"You got away from him."

"I wasn't crying because my heart was broken, John. When I got home from school, crying, I had just gotten the letter saying that I wasn't accepted in Cambridge. So after that I got away from this boy. I never talked to him again. I was focused on my life goals. I was already putting my sociopath head into violent deaths that I thought weren't solved properly. I decided I wasn't going to care about nobody but me."

"You married your job and got away from anything that could distract you."

"Yes. Caring is not an advantage. You see, John, how you messed up with my head?"

John gazed at Sherlock's eyes. He didn't understand. They kept looking at each other in silence, until Sherlock's face turned into pain.

"This feeling, John…" Sherlock put his hand on his on chest. "It hurts so much…" he couldn't even talk. He was breathing heavily, like having a heart attack.

John's medical instincts were telling him to help his friend, but there was nothing he could do. He was already dead. "What can I do, Sherlock? I don't even know what's happening!"

"It's… this whole… ghost thing. The things that tie me to this world, they are… choking me."

"I have to give these things to Mycroft then"

"Yes. Tell him I'm sorry. Tell him I forgave him. Please. He needs to know."

John got up and ran through the empty flat. Down the stairs, he nearly fell. He stopped and went back to get his cane. It slowed him down, but there was no way to take the pain without it.

He called a cab. His face was a mess. He didn't even know what his feelings were doing inside of him.

"John." Sherlock called. He was suddenly at his side on the cab.

"Jesus! Sherlock what…" John looked at the cabbie. "He can't…"

"Only you can see me."

"Great. I'm obviously going mad then."

Sherlock smiled. "You are mad, John."

The cabbie looked over his shoulder. "You said something, sir?"

"No. Nothing." He denied.

They remained in silence most part of the way, thought Sherlock seemed to be feeling better now. He probably didn't have to be in the cab. He should be able to teleport or something. But he stayed there the whole time, like a living human being. And the more he acted like he was alive, the sadder John was getting.

"I tried to talk to Lestrade." Sherlock said, when they were just a couple minutes from Mycroft's house. He didn't wait for John to answer. "I tried Lestrade, Molly, and even Mycroft. None of them could see me."

"Why me? Why can I see you?"

The cab stopped.

"You said something, sir?"

John gave him money and left. "No, nothing."

"I don't know why you can see me. But it has started recently. I've been around for a whole year."

"You were there every single time."

"Every single time you put your gun on your head, yes. I talked to you every time. It was killing me. Don't ever do that, John."

John swallowed dry. Those moments were private. He didn't want anybody to know. And most of all, he didn't want Sherlock to know. He had done that before, when Sherlock had faked his death. Those days what stopped him was the fact that Mycroft had told him not to lose his faith in Sherlock Holmes. _"If you die, John, there will be nobody left believing in Sherlock Holmes."_

And now he was in front of the door of that man.

He knocked. Soon, a voice in the intercom asked for his ID. It didn't take long for John to be sat in Mycroft's office.

He had this smirk smile on his pale face. Mycroft hadn't change a thing since John last saw him, except for the state of mind.

When Sherlock died, Mycroft broke himself into tinny little pieces of sorrow and sadness. He didn't talk to nobody. He didn't say a word during the burial. Not one single tear was shed. But John could see an ocean of tears choking him from inside out. His little brother was gone. And now it was true. It was forever.

"How can I help you, John?"

John was holding Sherlock's green box. He handed it to Mycroft without saying anything. There was a ball in her throat preventing him from talking. The sensation of impending tears. The kind of suffering which John was tired from. He hoped that Mycroft could understand without words. And all the time Sherlock was there, standing right in front of his brother, observing, giving him that curious look, analyzing him, invisible to him.

"What's this, John?"

John didn't answer. He waited for Mycroft to open it and recognize the letter he had sent to Sherlock.

And his smile fade away. His hands were shaking, his voice trembled. "Where did you…" he gasped. Sherlock, invisible to him, knelt by his side and touched his arm. John could see it, but Mycroft could only feel that absence which the touch brings.

"I thought… I thought he had burned them."

John's throat was aching. That was the best prove. He wasn't going mad. Sherlock was really there, as a freaking ghost. There was no way he'd find out about Sherlock pretending to burn those letters once that he didn't even know they exist.

"He wanted me to give these to you. And especially, this one." John got the redaction and carefully handed it to him.

As Mycroft read the redaction, his eyes filled up with tears for the first time since John met the brothers. And when he finished, he covered his eyes with his hands. He could barely see behind the wall of tears. "I left him. I abandoned him when he most needed me."

"He asked me to say that he forgives you. He truly forgives you."

Sherlock was knelling by his side, looking at his brother's eyes. He clearly needed to see if he believed that. He touched his shoulder, intending to press it. John wanted to say that he was there, right now. But Mycroft would never believe.

"Thank you, John." Mycroft put his soul on that phrase. He was drowning into tears. "Thank you very much."

John got up. He felt so much better. He left that house with a good feeling in his chest.

The feeling disappeared when he remembered that Sherlock would be free to leave now.

"Thank you." Sherlock said, appearing by his side.

John nearly jumped.

"Je-sus! You _have_ to stop appearing like that."

"Sorry" he laughed. "You did a great job."

"Yeah. You are probably leaving now, aren't you?"

"No. There's somebody else."


	3. Gratitude

**Cap. 3 - Gratitude**

* * *

"No. There's somebody else."

"Who?"

Sherlock looked at the street. At every single person. He then gazed at John. "When I got out of Cambridge, I knew only one thing. I didn't want to be part of the government. My brother tried to find me a job, but I never accepted his help. So I got bored. I started smoking. Just cigarettes at first. Then weed. Eventually, heroin, cocaine, having an affair with LSD and crack. Of course, alcohol was like water to swallow those pills."

John didn't know exactly how much drugs Sherlock had used before they met. He had an idea the day he found cocaine hidden on a vase. The detective had forgotten it there for a long time. But knowing it from his mouth was clearly a shock to the doctor.

"God, how did you even made till your late 30s?"

"Because of this person. I was lying on the street when he found me. I had tried to contact him for days, trying to say that their investigation was wrong. I tried to help. But nobody listened to me. Anyway, he found me on the street and he took me to the hospital. There, I told him he was stupid for arresting the wrong person. I explained why he was wrong. And he believed me."

"Lestrade." Said John, smiling. "Lestrade saved you."

Sherlock nodded. "He did. He was the first one to give me nicotine patches. He used to e-mail me with his weirdest cases, so I could get distracted. He believed me. He thought that someday I could be a good man."

"So what's missing?"

"To Mycroft it was forgiveness. To Lestrade is gratitude."

"And what do you want me to do?"

Sherlock smiled. It was a windy day, but his hair didn't move. The sun didn't seemed to touch his skin.

"You're gonna tell him to do a drugs bust in our flat."

John clearly didn't understand. What did he wanted with that? Wasn't a 'thank you' enough?

"Trust me, John" asked Sherlock. "Just call him. Tell him that you are afraid that people may find my illegal stuff hidden in my room, so you wanna get rid of it properly, the right way."

* * *

John obeyed. After just one hour, there were about six police officers from the narcotic division messing up with Sherlock's room. John's heart was being broken by seeing it. He didn't even got into that room more than a couple times in the past year. Everything was exactly how Sherlock left when he was hospitalized. And now the room was being _destroyed._

"Is this even necessary?" asked John.

"Yes. It's good for you too." Sherlock answered. "Go to the living room. Make yourself a tea."

John really needed something to get his mind away from the fact that they were even tearing Sherlock's mattress. There would be not even Sherlock's smell once they had finished.

John sat in the couch drinking his tea. Lestrade sat by his side. Sherlock was observing in front of the two, but the inspector couldn't know that.

"Why this now, John?" the inspector asked. "Why are you messing up with your memories now?"

John put the tea-cup on the table. "I don't know. I just don't wanna bring someone over and this person end up finding some cocaine."

"So you are perfectly fine with that. With the police destroying every piece of memory that is left?"

John wasn't. John was being completely destroyed along with those objects. The sound of a vase breaking in the room made an echo in his mind. He felt the urge to get up and shout at those police officers. He wanted so hard to kick them out of Sherlock's room.

"Yeah, I'm fine with that." He answered. "We must move on."

"You are strong, John. I admire you. I wouldn't be so brave. In fact, I was weak so many times. But you must know better than me. He was your friend after all."

"He was your friend too."

"He was. But I wasn't his friend. At least, he wouldn't call me that." Lestrade lowered his head.

Sherlock clenched his fists. He stepped toward Lestrade's direction. He clearly wanted to say something. John figured it out.

"You were his friend. He has always thought of you as his friend. He just didn't say it."

Sherlock nodded at John, approving his phrase. He moved his lips saying "thank you" without a word, like if Lestrade could hear them.

Lestrade gave him a sad smile, and then lowered his head again. "No, he didn't, John. I failed with him. I tried to help him, but… this drugs bust is the proof that I failed."

Differently from what John would expect, Sherlock smiled. John didn't say another word. It wasn't needed. Lestrade also couldn't talk anymore. They stayed there, hearing the noise the police officers were making while breaking every drawer from Sherlock's room. Meanwhile, Sherlock himself was quite peaceful, sat on the sofa, looking brighter as never. Perhaps he was close from leaving. Perhaps that would be the first and the last day John would see his best friend. And now he wouldn't even have his room to remember.

After a whole hour, the police officers came to the living room, removing their gloves.

"Nothing, boss. We found nothing."

Lestrade gazed at them. "What do you mean nothing?"

"It's clear. We only found some nicotine patches."

John smiled at Sherlock. He reattributed. "It seems, Lestrade" said John "that you didn't failed with him."

Lestrade nearly fell in the floor crying. He hugged John. His arms where shaking. "He would like to say thank you" said John. "He never did, but he would like to thank you for saving him, and for changing his life. You meant a lot to him and you were, for sure, his friend."

Sherlock touched Lestrade's shoulder while he was still holding John. He got closer and whispered: "thank you, my friend."

His heart nearly stopped. John knew. Sherlock was avoiding to talk while Lestrade was there because while John could hear and see him, Lestrade was starting to be able to hear him. How long would it take for the inspector to see Sherlock as well?

* * *

The police left the flat no much after the search ended. So now John was alone with his ghost friend again.

"Please, don't tell me you are leaving."

"I'm not. Not yet. You have to save someone."

"Save someone?"

"Yes. It's a woman. She is very important."

"Irene Adler?" guessed John.

"Irene is fine. There's nothing I need to tell her. It's somebody else. She is going to die if you don't save her."

"Ok then. Who is she?"

"You'll know. Right now you have to rest."

John shook his head, confused. "I thought you said she was going to die if I didn't save her".

"She is."

"Then we must save her now!"

"She is not in danger right now, she will be tomorrow. If you break into her house today, she'll call the police and you'll be arrested. There's nothing you can do today but rest."

* * *

**Sorry about my english, guys. I'm really trying (not my idiom) and I have no beta. Reviews maybe?**


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